Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon Part 9

Then follows a pa.s.sage which has caused much searching of hearts amongst our Whig historians.

"I confess to you, my Lords and Gentlemen, I have often myself read over that Bill; and though there is no colour for the fancy of the determination of this Parliament, yet I will not deny to you, that I have always expected that you would, and even wondered that you have not considered the wonderful clauses of the Bill, which pa.s.sed in a time very uncareful for the dignity of the Crown, or the security of the people....

I need not tell you how much I love Parliaments. Never King was so much beholden to Parliaments as I have been, nor do I think the Crown can ever be happy without frequent Parliaments. But, a.s.sure yourselves, if I should think otherwise, I could never suffer a Parliament to come together by the means prescribed in that Bill." [Footnote: In a note upon this pa.s.sage, Mr. Lister a.s.sumes that it means only that the King pledged himself to summon a Parliament within the prescribed time, rather than allow it to meet by the operation of the Act; but that he did not contemplate anything but submission to the Act, in the event of failure of such summons. He differs--with some hesitation--from Mr. Hallam, who stigmatizes it as "an audacious declaration, equivalent to an avowed design, in certain circ.u.mstances, of preventing the execution of the laws by force of arms"-- a declaration such as "was never before heard from the lips of an English King." We take the liberty of agreeing with Hallam's interpretation as against Lister's, but of dissenting from Hallam's estimate of the culpability of the avowal.]

It is absurd to think it needful either to explain away such a plain statement of policy, or to attribute to its author any const.i.tutional crime. The King declared his intention to have constant recourse to Parliaments. But he also declared, with good reason, not only that he gave no weight whatever to the baseless a.s.sumption that a new Parliament must be elected every three years, but also that he would never feel himself justified, by the provisions of an Act of Parliament pa.s.sed under evil auspices, in permitting a Parliament to be elected under conditions which necessarily implied a complete subversion of every const.i.tutional principle. There is such a thing as pedantic reverence for statute law. It is perfectly clear that a statute which provided that electors might proceed themselves to elect their representatives, and that sovereign power should be committed to these representatives, virtually a.s.sumes a state of anarchy to prevail. No const.i.tuted authority could, consistently with its fundamental duty, ever contemplate a case in which it could voluntarily permit such procedure. Far from proclaiming an intention to infringe the const.i.tution, Charles only uttered a commonplace of administrative duty. It is perfectly clear that to permit the course indicated in the Triennial Act would be to bring into being not one Parliament, but as many Parliaments as there were different factions in the country, free to meet together and chose their own representatives as and how they pleased. In such a case effective government would have ceased to exist. The Speech from the Throne had at least the desired effect. The Bill for the repeal of the Triennial Act pa.s.sed rapidly through both Houses. Parliament was not to be intermitted for more than three years; but the enactment was b.u.t.tressed by none of the obnoxious provisions of the previous Act, which would have preserved the fiction of a free Parliament by a resort to the methods of anarchy, and by a.s.suming that such methods were consistent with const.i.tutional and settled government.

But further measures appeared necessary to secure the safety of Church and Crown. Alarm had been created by the threatening tone of the addresses in the "congregated churches," where the preachers drew their most effective metaphors from the language of the camp and the battlefield, and where he was heard with most reverence who depicted in the most lurid language the doom which overhung the Court and the Church, and of which it was the duty of every devout enthusiast to make himself the instrument. To check this it was deemed necessary to proscribe Conventicles, and a new Bill was introduced, and rapidly pa.s.sed, declaring any meeting of more than five persons for religious services, otherwise than in accordance with the Liturgy of the Church, to be "a seditious and unlawful conventicle." The penalty for attendance was, in the case of a first offender, to be a fine of five pounds, or three months' imprisonment; ten pounds, or six months for a second offence; and thereafter transportation, or a fine of one hundred pounds. It is, of course, easy to denounce this Act on the specious and readily accepted principle of religious toleration. But, as it met with no opposition in a Parliament where there was already a party prepared to thwart the measures of the Court, we must a.s.sume that the general sense of danger appeared to justify it beyond possibility of contradiction. We must at least not forget, in judging the justification of the Act, that it embodied the same principles which were applied until the last quarter of the eighteenth century, under a succession of Whig administrations, to a.s.semblies of Episcopalian adherents in Scotland, and of Roman Catholics in both countries. If the principle of religious toleration is to be a universal guide, it is difficult to say why the maxims it enjoins should be held to apply only in the case of Presbyterians and Independents. Whatever the blame to be measured out to the promoters of the Act, there is no ground for exempting Clarendon from his share of responsibility. Our estimate of the weight of that responsibility will vary according as we judge the real danger of the situation. That there was widespread and implacable disaffection, there can be no reasonable doubt. That it was fostered to a very large extent by the earnest sympathy, and the stimulating harangues, of the sectarian preachers, admits of just as little doubt. Rumours of plots were thickening day by day. Evidence was forthcoming of a plan for seizing the Tower, and one, Colonel Danvers, who was concerned in it, was rescued from the hands of the King's officers by open force. [Footnote: Pepys, August 5th, 1665.] The Plague not unnaturally increased the panic that prevailed; and the air seemed darkened by vague threatenings, in which war, pestilence, and famine cast their gloomy shadows over the land. It is hard to say how Clarendon, or any other Minister, could have withstood the determination of Parliament to make adequate provision against what it deemed to be impending dangers.

The increasing prevalence of the Plague forced the Court and Parliament once again, in 1665, to move to Oxford; and there legislation followed the same course. Still further security was deemed necessary against the dissenting clergy, and a new Bill was introduced, providing that all non- conforming clergy should take the oath of non-resistance--declaring that it was unlawful on any pretence, to take up arms against the King, and that they would at no time endeavour any alteration of government in Church and State; and providing that those who refused the oath should be incapable of teaching in schools, and should not be permitted to reside within five miles [Footnote: Hence its popular name of "The Five Mile Act."] of any city or burgh returning members to Parliament, or of any place where they had acted as ministers of religion.

The Bill was evidently conceived under the influence of a panic. Absurd as were its provisions, they would perhaps not have been so severely condemned, under the high ethical standard of later historians, had they not been accompanied by the almost humorous provision that the penalties should be escaped by an oath, which not the most compliant Nonconformists could possibly have accepted. Sarcastic pleasantries of that sort always bring upon coercive legislation a heavier condemnation than it would otherwise incur.

Whatever its merits or demerits, the Bill was one which the House of Commons was determined to have, and which it pa.s.sed without a division. It was only in the Lords that it met with opposition. There its chief advocate was Archbishop Sheldon, whose inclination coincided with what he naturally believed to be his duty--to press every advantage for the Church. Sheldon was faithful to his convictions, and frankly desirous of securing the Church against any new efforts of the Nonconformists. His att.i.tude was that of the stalwart ecclesiastical protagonist, whose business it was to avenge the wrongs of the Church, not to conciliate her foes; and considerations of what was prudent in secular politics had no concern for him. Between Sheldon and Clarendon there was the sympathy of old and tried friends.h.i.+p and of comrades.h.i.+p in many a hard fight. But Clarendon, faithful friend of the Church as he was, did not always see eye to eye with ecclesiastics. We have seen how often and how severely he could criticize them; and his sympathy with their general object did not always commend to him their methods. His doubts might not always lead him to a.s.sume an att.i.tude of open and direct opposition. Deliberate abstention might be just as effective, and was less liable to be misunderstood by the friends of the Church. As a fact, in this case Clarendon was absent from the debates owing to his persistent enemy, the gout. He expresses no opinion adverse or otherwise upon the Act, of which he omits to make any mention. This sufficiently indicates his att.i.tude towards it; and his own closest political ally, Southampton, offered direct opposition to the Bill in the Lords. Whatever his loyalty to the Church, Southampton declared, he could take no oath to pledge himself against any alteration, which he might even "see cause to endeavour."

We need have little doubt as to which way Clarendon's sympathies went in the dispute between his two old friends. But indeed the pa.s.sing of the Bill depended upon no individual views and upon the action of no Minister.

The House of Commons was more Royalist than the King--more orthodox than the Church. Charles was finding out now what he was to find out more surely as time went on, that the bull-headed obstinacy of his friends might be quite as troublesome as the intrigues and plottings of his foes.

It would have been dangerous either for King or Minister to resist the impetuosity of Parliamentary intolerance. We cannot a.s.sume sympathy on Clarendon's part with these exaggerations of loyalty to the Church, from his general commendation of the Parliament at Oxford, and its legislation as a whole. It had, he tells us, "preserved that excellent harmony that the King had proposed." "Never Parliament so entirely sympathized with his Majesty;" "It pa.s.sed more Acts for his honour and security than any other had ever done in so short a session." All this was strictly true; and that Parliament doubtless did not lose favour in Clarendon's eyes, because it met at Oxford, and amidst those congenial surroundings which reminded him of the old days, and the old fights amongst comrades whose aims were purer, and their hearts higher, than the actors on the present stage.

Clarendon might, however, be fully persuaded of the honest aims of the Parliamentary Cavaliers, without approving all their methods or being blind to the danger these methods involved.

We have now to turn to another aspect of the work of this session, which concerned Clarendon much more directly, and which aroused in him not mere doubts of its expediency, but direct and deeply-felt conviction of its pernicious tendency. It is a matter which it is worth examining with some care, because it struck at Clarendon's fundamental theory of administration, and aroused in him an antipathy which may easily be misunderstood if we do not apprehend exactly what it involved.

In no sphere of administration did more difficult problems emerge after the Restoration than in that of Finance. It was then, as it always must be, the pivot upon which all const.i.tutional questions turned; and it was this which had given to Parliament the lever by which the monarchy had been overturned. When the Restoration took place, it was natural that some of the older usages in regard to finance should be revived. Cromwell had dictated their course to those feeble figments of Parliamentary representation which he had allowed to exist, and had crushed out any financial liberties which they might be supposed to possess. A regular system of a.s.sessment, by the quarter or the month, had been laid upon the counties. The real responsibility for this had rested with local functionaries acting under the direct orders of the executive; and its regularity caused it to be submitted to without resistance. Excise had been established, as we have seen, during the Civil War, as a temporary expedient, destined to be permanent; and any sudden alteration of this would have led to financial confusion. The old system of subsidies, of which a certain number were voted according to the exigencies of the time, and the power of the Government to influence Parliament, had been abandoned. When the Restoration came, these subsidies were for a while resumed. But at the same time a regular revenue of 1,200,000 was granted to the Crown, and provision was supposed to be made for it by a.s.signing certain taxes, and the produce of the Excise, for the purpose. But this was found to be inadequate to realize the stated income, and that income was found inadequate to meet the increasing expenditure, especially when the defence of England's commercial interests had to be maintained by a large and costly fleet. When the enormous and unprecedented grant of 2,500,000 was made to the Crown for the Dutch war, it was provided that it should be realized, not by the old method of subsidies, but by twelve quarterly a.s.sessments extending over three years. Clarendon's aim was by no means to place the Crown in a position of financial irresponsibility.

He realized that Parliament had a place in the Const.i.tution as well as the Crown, and had no desire to minimize the financial independence of Parliament, or to free the Crown from the necessity of regular resort to Parliament for such special and extraordinary grants as might be necessary. But he thought that the Crown should be provided with a regular revenue to meet ordinary expenses; and that it should be required to apply to Parliament only for any increase of that revenue if special exigencies should arise. But the revenue, so granted, should belong to the Crown, which should be free to administer it according to the judgment of the Ministers of the Crown. Parliament possessed the prerogative of making the grant, and thereby of imposing conditions upon it. But once made, the Ministers of the Crown were to be responsible for its application. Any maladministration would be subject of punishment by the Crown, or, if need be, of impeachment by the Parliament.

The abandonment of the system of subsidies almost necessarily led to another far-reaching change. Separate subsidies had formerly been granted by Parliament in respect of the nation, and by Convocation in respect of the Church. The right of making independent grants was a doubtful privilege for the Church, and would, had it continued, have caused endless confusion to the Exchequer. It was abandoned by consent. No statute abolished it. It was an old usage, but rested upon little more than usage; and it was abolished, once and for all, not by statute, but by arrangement between Sheldon and the leaders of the Church, on the one hand, and Clarendon and Southampton on the other. It was an instance of the abandonment of an ancient principle, sanctioned by the usage of centuries and intimately bound up with the relations between Church and State, by no action of the legislature, but solely by the action of the Crown. At the same time, by an almost more startling extension of the prerogative, the clergy were compensated by being allowed to take part in the election of Parliamentary representatives.

The method by which the grants given by Parliament could be made available for national expenditure had been found easy and convenient. For this purpose the help of the bankers, who were generally goldsmiths of high standing, was invoked. Clarendon gives us a detailed account of the usage.

Half a dozen of the leading monied men of the city were summoned to the council chamber. They knew the amount of grant made by Parliament, and were asked to what extent they were prepared to make advances upon this amount. They did so in reliance upon the faith of the King and the Lord Treasurer, and upon the certainty that any failure to fulfil its obligations on the part of the Exchequer would inevitably lead to national loss of credit, and consequent bankruptcy. If the current rate of interest was 6 per cent., they advanced the money at 8 per cent., and counted on the 2 per cent. to recoup them. Clarendon thought the rate fair, and found the method eminently convenient. But the bankers relied solely upon the good faith and prudence of the Minister. There was nothing to prevent the King making an a.s.signment of the revenue, as it came in, to purposes other than the reimburs.e.m.e.nt of the bankers. The only guarantee against this was the good faith of the responsible Minister and the certainty that the Crown must submit its case to Parliament should the need of further grant arise. The King had to adapt his expenditure to his revenue; but the application of revenue to any particular branch of the expenditure was, in Clarendon's view, a matter for himself and his responsible Ministers.

On more than one occasion in the past grants from Parliament had been expressly a.s.signed to specific purposes, and such an arrangement had unquestionably much to commend it. But a long time often intervened between the making of a grant and the realization of revenue. Money had to be procured at once, and before the tax yielded revenue new needs had arisen, and new expenditure had to be incurred. The system of appropriating supplies would undoubtedly make the financial administration more mechanical, circ.u.mscribe the responsibility of Ministers, and cripple the power of the Crown in applying revenue towards pressing objects.

Unforeseen savings--though these, indeed, were not an item of much importance in the financial administration of Charles's reign--could not, under such a system, be applied to new exigencies without a further warrant from Parliament. The whole system of appropriation, however defensible on the modern maxims of sound finance, was inconvenient in working, and tended to increase the dependence of the Crown on Parliament, and to diminish at once the discretion and the responsibility of Ministers of the Crown.

It was during the Parliament at Oxford in 1665 that this fundamental change in the financial system was pressed forward by the personal jealousy of that clique at Court which sought the ruin of Southampton and Clarendon. Specious arguments could easily be brought forward against the greed and extortion of the bankers, who were realizing fortunes by the loose financial administration which made the King's revenue pa.s.s through their hands, and subjected it to a heavy toll upon which they throve. Once revenue was a.s.signed to a specific object, the credit of the Crown, it was alleged, would be enormously enhanced, and it would be perfectly easy to establish a State bank, on the model of that in Amsterdam, which would be a perennial source from which money might be drawn as required. And this facility of supply would be joined with purity of financial administration; Parliament would know exactly what was done with the money that it voted; leakages would be stopped, and peculation would cease to be possible.

The arguments were at once specious and inviting. But in truth the real motives which prompted the new proposals were jealousy of Southampton and Clarendon and personal ambition. The prime mover was Sir George Downing, that turbulent and versatile political adventurer, who had run through the whole gamut of political tergiversation, and who, as envoy to Holland, had long worried Clarendon by the pertinacity with which he had provoked the jealousy of the Dutch and had done all in his power to precipitate the war. He had contrived to secure appointment as one of the Tellers of the Exchequer, was in close confederacy with Bennet, now Lord Arlington, and was scheming with him to oust the influence of the Chancellor and the Treasurer. His perquisites, as Teller of the Exchequer, were lessened by the a.s.signment of taxes to the bankers in return for their advances, and as the proceeds of the taxes did not pa.s.s through the Exchequer, the percentage to the Tellers was thereby diminished. The position of Lord Southampton was difficult to a.s.sail. "His reputation was so great, his wisdom so unquestionable, and his integrity so confessed, that they knew in neither of those points he could be impeached." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 2.] The King was still faithful to his Treasurer, and insinuations as to his increasing age and unfitness for active business did not shake his confidence. But Southampton's enemies were strengthened by the support of Ashley, who, though his advancement was due to his relations.h.i.+p to Southampton by marriage, was beginning to feel that he might well rid himself of the ladder by which he had climbed, and that he himself would be a very competent Treasurer. It was only when he perceived that his confederates might not aid this ambition that he became more lukewarm in his support of their schemes.

There was at least one convenience in the present system. The facile humour of the King led him to a.s.sign revenues to suitors who had no very creditable claims to reward. It was convenient to him to s.h.i.+ft to the Chancellor and the Treasurer the odium of refusing to endorse these grants. Their watchful jealousy against inroads upon the national resources increased the number of their enemies; but it saved the King from the irksome burden of refusal. It was speciously urged against this that the root of all the financial difficulties was

"the unlimited power of the Lord Treasurer, that no money could issue out without his particular direction, and all money was paid upon no other rules than his order; so that, let the King want as much as was possible, no money could be paid by him without the Treasurer's warrant." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 5.]

It was a persuasive argument for Charles's ears. The popular pretence went only a little way. The real aim--and this it was that attracted the King-- was that personal authority should be eliminated, and that he should no longer be subject to the galling supervision of the two Ministers, whose bull-dog honesty was so often inconvenient. Meanwhile the minds of the members of the House were cunningly prepared for the reception of the new design, by invectives against the bankers. They were "cheats, bloodsuckers, extortioners." Their enemies "would have them looked upon as the causes of all the King's necessities and of the want of monies throughout the kingdom." [Footnote: _Ibid._, p. 7.]

When the Bill for supply was brought in by the Solicitor-General, Downing found his opportunity. He proposed a proviso, the object of which was "to make all the money that was to be raised by the Bill to be applied only to those ends to which it was given, and to no other purpose whatsoever, by what authority soever." The restrictions thus imposed upon the royal authority were viewed with jealousy by many, who found in them a renewal of that financial supremacy of the Commons which had been the symptom of the approach of the rebellion. Cromwell, it was pointed out, had himself seen the inconvenience of such restrictions, and had refused to submit to them. The proviso would have been defeated, had not Downing a.s.sured the Solicitor-General that the proviso was proposed by the King's own direction. After the House had risen, the King sent for the Solicitor- General, and "forbade him any more to oppose that proviso, for that it was much for his service." [Footnote: _Ibid._, p. 11.] He refused to listen to any remonstrances. "He would bear the inconveniences which would ensue upon his own account, for the benefits which would accrue." Downing took care to strengthen these favourable resolutions of the King. "He would make his Exchequer the best and the greatest bank in Europe, where all Europe would, when it was once understood, pay in their money for the certain profit it would yield, and the indubitable certainty that they should receive their money." He would, he a.s.sured the King, "erect the King's Exchequer into the same degree of credit that the Bank of Amsterdam stood upon." He forgot to tell the King that such credit could only be established by eliminating the personal influence and authority of the Crown over finance. That was no doubt a change which must come. But it formed no part of Charles's calculation, and it was opposed to Clarendon's theory of monarchy. Clarendon states the case with precision. Downing propounded his scheme

"without weighing that the security for monies so deposited in banks (such as that of Amsterdam) is the republic itself, which must expire before that security can fail; which can never be depended on in a monarchy, where the monarch's sole word can cancel all those formal provisions which can be made." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 13.]

Anxious as he was for financial purity and for a due interdependence of King and Parliament, Clarendon was not disposed to part with this prerogative of the Crown. Downing and his allies were equally aware that to abandon it was no part of Charles's thoughts. It would be absurd to argue back from later days when such a claim on the part of the Crown was a thing of the past. The essence of the plan, which made it palatable to the King and the object of all Downing's scheming, was that "it was to new-model the whole Government of the country, in which the King resolved to have no more superior officers." The power of these superior officers was an incubus of which Charles longed to rid himself.

The Bill pa.s.sed the House of Commons, and was brought to the Lords. Such Bills, says Clarendon in an interesting pa.s.sage, [Footnote: _Life_, iii.

13.] "seldom stay long with the Lords."

"Of custom, which they call privilege, they are first begun in the House of Commons, where they endure long deliberation, and when they are adjusted there, they seem to pa.s.s through the House of Peers with the reading twice and formal commitment, in which any alterations are very rarely made, except in any impositions which are laid upon their (_i.e._ the Lords') own persons." "The same endors.e.m.e.nt that is sent up by the Commons is usually the Bill itself that is presented to the King for his royal a.s.sent."

It is to be observed that Clarendon is speaking of custom only, not of right; and he is careful to add that such Bills are "no more valid without their (the Lords') consent than without that of the other (the Commons); and they may alter any clause in them that they do not think for the good of the people." Only "the Lords use not to put any stop on the pa.s.sage of such Bills, much less diminish what is offered by them to the King."

But in spite of such usage, the new provisions of the Bill so alarmed those in the House of Lords who understood the matter, as to prompt them to an alteration. Both the Chancellor and the Treasurer were confined by illness, and neither of them had received notice of the Bill. It was only when their colleagues in the House of Lords informed them of its purport that they resolved to resist what they believed to be a deadly blow to the power of the Crown, albeit dealt with the sanction and active approval of the King.

By this time Ashley, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, found his own prerogatives threatened, had definitely ranged himself against those with whom he had been a.s.sociated in plotting against Clarendon and Southampton.

His fertile wit supplied new arguments, and helped him to alarm the King.

Charles

"was contented that the matter should be debated in his presence; and because the Chancellor was in his bed, thought his chamber to be the fittest place for the consultation; and the Lord Treasurer, though indisposed and apprehensive of the gout, could yet use his feet, and was very willing to attend his Majesty there, without the least imagining that he was aimed at."

Clarendon could no longer rely upon an effective ally in his aged colleague.

Besides the King and the Duke of York and the two chief Ministers there were present Ashley, Arlington, and Coventry. The law officers were there to advise; and Downing was admitted that he might answer the objections to his scheme. Ashley began the discussion by inveighing against the proviso.

The King checked this "by declaring that whatsoever had been done in the whole transaction of it had been with his privity and approbation, and the whole blame must be laid to his own charge, who, it seems, was like to suffer most by it." Whatever the tendency of the proviso, it is clear that such action made an end of all real ministerial responsibility, if the chief Ministers of the Crown were to find their authority undermined by schemes which the King might concoct with inferior officers. The appropriation of supplies might be a step towards financial control; but it was bought at a heavy cost if it was to be achieved by backstairs influence against the advice of the King's responsible advisers. Clarendon was not prepared to accept what he believed to be a breach of the Crown's const.i.tutional prerogative; but, compared with his master, he had travelled far on the road towards const.i.tutional monarchy. Charles's nonchalant surrender of the powers of the Crown was carried out with cynical disregard of all the principles of the const.i.tution.

But the King did not refuse to admit the force of some of the adverse arguments. He confessed "that they had given some reasons against it which he had not thought of, and which in truth he could not answer," and he was waiting to hear it argued further. The first objection was its novelty.

The new proviso would form a dangerous precedent, which would hereafter appear in every Bill. The King would not be "master of his own money, nor the Ministers of his revenue be able to a.s.sign monies to meet any casual expenses." The authority of the Treasurer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be vested in the Tellers of the Exchequer, who were subordinate officers. Clarendon's comment upon this is characteristic of his best vein of grave sarcasm.

"The King had in his nature so little reverence for antiquity, and did in truth so much contemn old orders, forms, and inst.i.tutions, that the objections of novelty rather advanced than obstructed any proposition. He was a great lover of new inventions, and thought them the effects of wit and spirit, and fit to control the superst.i.tious observation of the dictates of our ancestors; so that objection made little impression."

Many sore trials to his patience have lent point and acid to Clarendon's satirical picture of a master, whose cynicism made him fancy that blind pursuit of novelty sat well upon the occupant of a throne that rested chiefly upon ancient usage, and upon the glamour of reverence which that usage brought.

The overpowering temptation to the King was the chimera of a bank which, it was represented, would be created by this new proviso. It was in vain that Clarendon showed that the hope was an empty one; that heavy interest would have to be paid for advances; that good husbandry, and that alone, could restore order to the finances. Downing was an adept in specious argument. "He wrapped himself up, according to his custom, in a mist of words that n.o.body could see light in, but they who by often hearing the same chat thought they understood it."

To the King's credit it must be counted that he was not indifferent to the injustice involved to the bankers, who had already advanced large sums, on the credit of the King and his Minister, for which, under the new proviso, they could receive no reimburs.e.m.e.nt, and might thus be ruined. That and the other arguments impressed him. He went so far as to "wish that the matter had been better consulted," and confessed that Downing "had not answered many of the objections." But the balance of personal convenience, and the facilities which Downing lavishly promised, in the end carried the day. That vein of obstinacy, which was entwined with the love of ease in Charles, determined him to adopt an expedient, hazardous, indeed, but which promised some hope of financial fruit, and had been propounded on the King's own orders. Perhaps Clarendon himself contributed to this result by the natural, but imprudent, outbreak of indignation which moved him in the King's own presence to scold Downing in no measured terms. To do so was almost the same as to administer the scolding to the King himself; and even a temper so easy as that of Charles could hardly have taken such an outburst in good part.

"It was impossible," Clarendon told Downing, "for the King to be well served whilst fellows of his condition were admitted to speak as much as they had a mind to; and that, in the best times, such presumptions had been punished with imprisonment by the Lords of the Council without the King taking notice of it."

Clarendon himself seems to have felt that such an utterance, in the presence of the King, to one whom the King declared to have acted on his orders, was a straining of courtly etiquette which required some apology.

It was uttered, he tells us, in the extremity of bodily pain; and he thought "it did not exceed the privilege and the dignity of the place he held." Clarendon certainly set himself no very strict bonds of courtliness in the freedom of his utterances to his King. On this particular occasion his plain speaking seems to have rankled.

What, then, was the real meaning of this change, so bitterly resented by Clarendon, and eventually adopted in the teeth of his advice by Parliament and King? It is absurd to suppose that any consuming desire for financial exact.i.tude prompted the action of Downing, of Arlington, or of Coventry.

No doubt they antic.i.p.ated one necessary result of full Parliamentary control over finance, in the principle of appropriation. But what they really desired was to eliminate the discretion, and thereby the control over expenditure, which was exercised by the great officers of State. That also was bound to come. The rapidly increasing range of administration and of expenditure must inevitably have subst.i.tuted routine rules and fixed practice for the personal intervention, and the exercise of personal authority, by those great officers of State. But Clarendon was loth to part with this personal authority; he distrusted, with good reason, the honesty and the independence of the inferior officials into whose hands the administration of finance was intended to pa.s.s, and who could easily, under the cover of routine practice, which relieved them from the intervention of their superiors, conceal a system of malversation. The change, indeed, embodied in its essentials the pa.s.sing of authority from the great responsible officers to a bureaucracy. Its full results could not yet be seen. Its dangers have since then been prevented, and it is to be hoped they may not again arise. But Clarendon saw in the change the reversal of all former traditions; the diminis.h.i.+ng of responsibility in the high officers and the subst.i.tution for them of a lower grade of petty officials, s.h.i.+elded by the great edifice of rules of routine in which they become experts, and, as such, are una.s.sailable. It was a change which was bound to come. It was impossible that the vast machine of national finance could be guided by rules laid down for each case by a responsible Minister. The change was none the less a revolution, and was not more welcome to Clarendon, in that it was carried out by the scheming of an ambitious underling, working upon the facile temper of the King, who thus hoped to have an ampler supply of revenue, freed from the control of Ministers who could curb his extravagance.

The episode produced a marked increase of the estrangement between the King and the Minister who had served him so well. Clarendon's fierce denunciation of Downing's presumption rankled in Charles's memory, and those about him took care that it should not be smoothed over. "Whatever else was natural to wit sharpened with malice to suggest upon such an argument, they enforced with warmth, that they desired might be taken for zeal for his service and dignity, which was prost.i.tuted by those presumptions of the Chancellor." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 24.] Clarendon soon learned the truth from the changed demeanour of the King. At first he was at a loss to explain this; but Charles soon spoke in terms that could not be mistaken, and expressed "a great resentment of it," as an unpardonable insult. "And all this," adds Clarendon, "in a choler very unnatural to him, which exceedingly troubled the Chancellor and made him more discern, though he had evidence enough of it before, that he stood upon very slippery ground." [Footnote: _Life_, iii. 25.] It was no part of Clarendon's character to take such a rebuke in silence or to leave it to pa.s.s gradually from the mind of the King. His conscience, he said, had not reproached him; but since his Majesty thought his behaviour so bad, "he must and did believe he had committed a great fault, for which he did humbly ask his pardon." It was impossible, he said, that any one could believe that he sought to keep the King from a clear view of his own affairs; and none knew better than his Majesty how earnestly he had striven "that his Majesty might never set his hand to anything before he fully understood it upon such references and reports as, according to the nature of the business, were to be for his full information." That innate reverence for the power of the Crown, which was Clarendon's guiding principle, could hardly have been united with sharper sarcasm upon the business methods of the King.

To outward seeming the feeling of offence was removed. Charles had no wish to resume the argument, and forbade him to believe "that it was or could be in any man's power to make him suspect his affection or integrity to his service." He covered any resentment he might feel with that dissimulation of which he was so great a master; and soon after gave an earnest of his continued good-will by promoting Clarendon's kinsman, Dr.

Hyde, to the Bishopric of Salisbury. "Nor was his credit with the King thought to be lessened by anybody but himself, who knew more to that purpose than other people could do." It may be doubted whether some of Charles's familiars did not guess more shrewdly than Clarendon supposed.

The gossip of Pepys lets us know that the tongues of talebearers were not silent.

CHAPTER XXIII